Monday, June 4, 2012

Audio Description At Luminato in Toronto

Hi everyone,
Here is some news on a project I've been fortunate enough to have been involved with .  Check it out if you are in Toronto between June 8th and June 24th!  It promises to be quite interesting.  As with last year, I commend The Luminato Festival for their forward and inclusive thinking regarding accessibility and arts events.   Sorry, I could not get the logos for Theatre Local, Picasso Pro and Luminato to appear correctly in this post, so I did not include them.



Picasso PRO will post extra information to help you plan your visits so please check our website for updates. www.picassopro.org/news/
Log on as well to access this release in fully accessible format. Valuable script creation feedback was provided by expert audience advisors Wanda Fitzgerald and Durelle Harford McAllister.
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For immediate rease: May 29th, 2012


LUMINATO FESTIVAL AUDIO DESCRIBES THREE EXTRAORDINARY ART INSTALLATIONS FOR BLIND AND LOWVISION PATRONS


TORONTO, ON The Visual Arts Program of this years Luminato Festival, June 8th 17th, 2012, includes three extraordinary installations equipped with recorded audio descriptions created by Theatre Local and Picasso PRO for blind and low vision patrons.

Audio description, the art of talking pictorially, acts as a verbal lens making exhibits, theatre, film and other art events more accessible to patrons who are blind or partially sighted. Patrons use audio devices to hear trained describers talk about visual aspects that are vital to experiencing the works in their totality. Luminato’s recorded descriptions will be available through luminato.com on the Accessibility page under Visitor Info and Luminato’s mobile app on June 4. Directions to the exhibit sites and background on the works can be found on luminato.com. TELUS, Luminato’s Innovation Partner, is Presenting Partner of the Audio Description, mobile application and offers engagement through technology across the Festival.

The Encampment by artists Thom Sokoloski and Jenny-Anne McCowanJune 8th -24th, at Fort York National Historic Site and co-commissioned with the City of Toronto, is a large scale installation comprised of 200 A-frame tents pitched on the grounds of Fort York. Conceived as a temporal village, each tent will contain an installation by one of 100 creative collaborators to represent an intimate aspect of the War of 1812’s civilian history. In this way the site becomes a metaphorical archeological dig, unearthing long-buried shards of human experience. The audio description will provide a description of the sites pathways and features, plus a small sampling of tent installations.

Revered street artist Dan Bergeron explores themes of location, transformation, public space and its reclamation by those whom it excludes and ignores. ///RE-PLY\\\June 8th -17th, is the artist’s latest response to these issues through a series of temporary site-specific sculptural installations situated along Parliament Street between St. Jamestown (Wellesley) and Regent Park (Dundas).  Both abstract and concrete, the pieces will reference the overabundance of condo development throughout the city with a sly and playful eye.       
                                                            
S/N the third installation, located at Toronto Pearson Airports Terminal One, June 8-30th and created by Belgian artists LAb[au], is constructed from a large assortment of discarded technology and salvaged split-flaps; components from information displays that pre-date LED monitors in public spaces like airports and train stations. Arranged in a circular grid that allows visitors to stand in the centre, the flaps randomly rotate until the system identifies words which create auto-poetic sequences, inviting viewers to interpret their meaning.

Luminato’s new Festival website, luminato.com, has been redesigned with accessibility in mind, and underwent an Accessibility Review by the Inclusive Design Research Centre at OCAD University. The Festivals mobile app can be made accessible through settings on a users mobile phone, and is now available for download. Toronto based arts pioneer, Theatre Local teams up once again with Picasso PRO, a collective dedicated to bridging disability and the performance /media arts to create and provide the audio description. In 2011 they first partnered with Luminato on the pilot description of Sargasso, a large-scale suspended sculpture by Philip Beesley at Allen Lambert Galleria inBrookfield Place. Audio description is one of Luminato’s latest commitments to making the Festival accessible, inclusive and inviting to all audiences.

Theatre Local is a leading arts innovator in Canada and challenges the norm to make spaces better for people. With 20 years of experience, project leader Rebecca Singh looks for and creates viable initiatives to influence and shape cultural dialogue that impacts Toronto and all its citizens. Rebecca was the Luminato Festival fellow in 2010-11 and was the driving force behind in establishing the Audio Description Pilot Program in 2011, with the landmark audio description of Philip Beesleys Sargasso.

Picasso PRO was formed to facilitate genuine opportunity and integration for artists with disabilities and Deaf artists in the performing and media arts. It springs from the passionate conviction that artists with disabilities and Deaf artists belong on Canada’s stages and screens, among our audiences, professional staffs, teachers and cultural leaders. They partner with individual artists and companies to create innovative, accessible work in all facets of live performance and media creation. Audience access for patrons who are Deaf and live with disabilities is a key aspect of Picasso PROs work.

Luminato is Toronto's fifth season when the festival stages the best of our city and invites the world to celebrate and transform it with us. Luminato is an annual multi-disciplinary celebration of theatre, dance, music, literature, food, visual arts, film, magic, and more. The sixth edition of Luminato takes place from June 817, 2012.

Media Contacts:
Rebecca Singh                                             
Theatre Local                                                 
416-879-3416                                      
www.theatrelocal.org                                                  

Rose Jacobson  
Picasso PRO 
416-536-7522

Danyel McLachlan
Luminato
416-368-3100 x242


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